Last Sunday the people of Lithuania, the largest of the former Soviet Baltic republics, elected an American citizen to be their president. He's 71 year old Valdas Adamkus, a Lithuanian American who's spent much of his working life as an environmental advisor to the United States government. In a tense run-off vote he just beat his more fancied opponent, Arturas Paulauskas, a former prosecutor-general twenty-seven years his junior. BBC Correspondent James Coomarasamy spent election night in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, shuttling between the two opposing camps:

Lithuania's assembled movers and shakers were agreed on two things. The finger buffet was good. The host's chances of becoming president were non-existent. We were in one of Vilnius' swish restaurants, at Valdas Adamkus's election-night party. The 71-year-old was an unlikely Presidential candidate. He'd fled communist Lithuania in the nineteen forties and spent most of his life in the United States, working for the environmental protection agency. Yes, he'd made it to the second round of the presidential race, but he wasn't given much chance against Arturas Paulauskas, a much younger opponent with a reputation for successfully taking on the mafia.

A man with a grey moustache sidled up to me, grinning conspiratorially. He was, he said, one of Mr Paulauskas' advisors and he'd gatecrashed the party. - "Do you want to see what I've got in my pocket? he asked. Before I could think of a suitably diplomatic answer, he'd already whipped out a piece of paper. "This is a letter from Mr Paulauskas to Mr Adamkus, offering him a post in his new administration. Look it's got tomorrow's date on it."

At that moment the glare of camera lights announced the candidate's arrival. I'd been expecting a tired old man, exhausted after weeks of campaigning and enjoying one last turn in the spotlight. What I saw was something different - a slim, sprightly-looking man who glided through the crowd, shaking hands and working the room with the ease of an experienced politician. He'd certainly learnt a trick or two during his time as a one of Ronald Reagan's environmental advisors.

But still, the voices around me were insistent. Adamkus was slick, effective but not really the sort of man your average Lithuanian would vote for. Most people, they said, couldn't understand the anglicisms he peppered his speech with. The smart money was still on Paulauskas.

So, I headed for the other side of town and the potential victor's camp. It wasn't what I'd been expecting. TV adverts had compared the 44 year-old Paulauskas to other youthful world leaders: Blair, Clinton, Poland's Kwasniewski. But his headquarters were as old school as you could get - a small, dark corridor on the third floor of a huge Soviet-style building. Cramped, badly kept - it smelt of defeat. And there was Paulauskas himself. As his opponent was tucking into vol-au-vents in the restaurant, he was pacing about, munching nervously on an apple. His stature seemed to have shrunk to fit his surroundings. He'd come close to outright victory in the first round, two weeks before, but as that night had slipped by, he'd seen his vote fall beneath 50%. Tonight he was having a bad case of deja vu.

When he spoke, it was with an ill-at-ease bravado. Of course I'm going to win, he told me - even as the first results showed his voters were abandoning him.

On television, it was even worse. In a peculiarly Lithuanian form of torture, the candidates weren't allowed to bite their nails in private. Instead, they were dragged into TV studios at regular intervals throughout the night.

Adamkus looked great. More like Blair or Clinton than his opponent - the man who was supposed to resemble them.

Paulauskas, by contrast, wriggled and squirmed. As his defeat became more certain, he was asked what had led to it - Was it his father's links with the KGB? Or his opponent's wealth and connections in the west? How had he squandered a 17 point lead from the first round? Paulauskas had no answers. And, when the final result showed he'd lost by just half a per cent, he pulled on his rain coat and marched out of the building; his head bent like an old man's.

His 71-year-old opponent meanwhile was celebrating a famous victory. At a news conference the following morning he pledged to bring Lithuania into the European Union and said he'd be giving up his American citizenship. In the corner of the room, I saw the gloomy figure of my moustachioed friend from the previous night; a gatecrasher once again. I wondered what he'd done with his letter.
 

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